Human Computer Interaction Lecture 19 Universal Design

1. Human Computer InteractionLecture 19Universal Design

2. Universal Design • “The process of designing products so that they can be used by as many people as possible in as many situations as possible” • In our case, designing interactive systems that are usable by anyone, with any range of abilities (and capabilities), using any technology platform. • Can be achieved by • E.g. Both visual and audio access to commands in an interface

3. Universal Design • In reality, we may not be able to design everything to be accessible to everyone, but we can try to provide an equivalent experience • Examples of universal design in real life • Edge of footpath is lowered (Slope) • Automatic doors • Both Auditory and visual notification in lifts • Universal design does not make design better for disable people only but also for everyone

4. Universal Design • Universal Design demands making systems more accessible • The idea of accessibility has gone beyond the basic concept of “designing for disability” to “universal design”, allowing access by everyone. • Consider two versions of a website (simple for slow connections, high-end for high-speed connections) • Universal design is particularly important for systems that are to be used in a public context

5. Universal Design • In short, universal design deals with diversities like following: • Age differences • gender differences • cultural issues • people for whom English is a second language • people with different educational backgrounds • people having a range of disabilities • … etc.

6. Universal Design Principles - Proposed by North Carolina State University • These principles give us a framework in which to develop universal designs • Cover all areas of design and are equally applicable to interactive systems. • These include • equitable use • flexibility in use • simple and intuitive to use • perceptible information • tolerance for error • low physical effort • size and space for approach and use

7. Universal Design Principles • Equitable (unbiased) use • No user is excluded, design for all • Whenever possible, Same access for all otherwise equivalent use • Security, safety, privacy etc. provision to all • Flexibility in use • Design should support adaptation to a range of abilities by choice of methods and adaptivity to user’s pace and custom

8. Universal Design Principles • Simple and intuitive to use • Regardless of the knowledge, experience, language or level of concentration of the user • Should not be unnecessarily complex • Perceptible information • The design should provide effective communication of information • Redundancy of presentation (e.g. graphic, verbal, text, touch) • Essential information should be emphasized and clearly distinguishable from peripheral information

9. Universal Design Principles • -Tolerance for error • Minimizing the chances of errors • Minimizing error damage • -Low physical effort

10. Multi-Sensory Systems • More than one sensory channel in interaction • e.g. sounds, text, hypertext, animation, video, gestures, vision • Used in a range of applications: • particularly good for users with special needs. • Will cover • general terminology • speech • non-speech sounds • handwriting

11. Usable Senses The 5 senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) are used by us every day • each is important on its own • together, they provide a fuller interaction with the natural world Computers rarely offer such a rich interaction Can we use all the available senses? • ideally, yes • practically – no We can use • sight • sound • touch (sometimes) We cannot (yet) use • taste • smell

12. Multi-modal vs. Multi-media • Multi-modal systems • use more than one sense (or mode ) of interaction e.g. visual and aural senses: a text processor may speak the words as well as echoing them to the screen • Multi-media systems • use a number of different media to communicate information e.g. a computer-based teaching system:may use video, animation, text and still images: different media all using the visual mode of interaction; may also use sounds, both speech and non-speech: two more media, now using a different mode

13. Speech Human beings have a great and natural mastery of speech • makes it difficult to appreciate the complexities but • it’s an easy medium for communication

14. Speech Recognition Problems • Different people speak differently: • accent, intonation, stress, idiom, volume, etc. • The syntax of semantically similar sentences may vary. • Background noises can interfere. • People often use “ummm.....” and “errr.....” e.g. “Errr.... I, um, don’t like this” • Words not enough - semantics needed as well • requires intelligence to understand a sentence • context of the word often has to be known • also information about the action and speaker

15. The Phonetic Typewriter • Developed for Finnish (a phonetic language, written as it is said) • Trained on one speaker, will generalise to others. • A neural network is trained to cluster together similar sounds, which are then labelled with the corresponding character. • When recognising speech, the sounds spoken are allocated to the closest related output, and the character for that output is printed. • requires large dictionary of minor variations to correct general mechanism • noticeably poorer performance on speakers it has not been trained on

16. The Phonetic Typewriter (ctd)

17. Speech Synthesis (fusion) The generation of speech Useful • natural and familiar way of receiving information Problems • speech recognition Additional problems • intrusive - needs headphones, or creates noise in the workplace • temporary - harder to review and browse

18. Speech Synthesis: useful? Successful in certain constrained applicationswhen the user: • has few alternatives Examples: • screen readers • read the textual display to the user • utilised by visually impaired people • warning signals • spoken information sometimes presented to people whose visual and haptic skills are already fully occupied